"Not bad," he said.
"You going to fuck with the sights?" Zimmerman asked. "Or do it Ken-tucky?"
"I don't have two inches to play with, Ernie," McCoy said, and sat down and adjusted the rear sight so that it would move bullet impact two inches to the left.
Then he went back to the firing line, dropped back in the prone position, replaced the sling, and loaded three more cartridges into the magazine. It took him as long as the first time to find what he thought was a satisfactory sight picture, and then he squeezed one off.
This time, the result was only a dull click as the firing pin moved forward against the cartridges' primer.
"Shit," McCoy said bitterly. "And I fired the worst-looking ones first."
He angrily worked the action, ejecting the malfunctioning cartridge. He looked at it in disgust. There was a clear mark where the firing pin had struck the primer. He started to throw it away in anger.
"Don't," Everly said. "We can use the bullet!"
McCoy looked up at him and tossed him the malfunctioning cartridge. Then he rolled back into the prone position, found a satisfactory sight picture, and squeezed the trigger. The cartridge fired, and so a moment later did the third.
He stood up and walked back to the target. Now there were two holes, which he could cover with one thumb, in the grease pencil bull's-eye.
"OK," he said. "Now you, Ernie."
McCoy jerked his knife from the tree.
"How am I supposed to put my target up?" Zimmerman protested.
"You'll think of something," McCoy said. "You're a gunny, right?"
"I'm not going to shoot your fucking knife," Zimmerman said.
"You'll think of something," McCoy repeated.
Zimmerman affixed his target to the tree with a chrome-plated toenail clip-per, then walked back to the firing line.
By the time the four marksmen-McCoy, Zimmerman, Wendlington, and Alvarez-had zeroed their rifles, the total stock of cartridges caliber.30-06 armor piercing available to USFIP was down to thirty-six. Eight cartridges had misfired.
McCoy did the mental arithmetic-eight failures in thirty-two shots was one in four, twenty-five percent-but said nothing. He was sure the others could count too.
[SEVEN]
Headquarters, U.S. Forces in the Philippines
Davao Oriental Province
Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines
0815 Hours 27 January 1943
"We won't have time to talk this all through again when we get down to the highway," Captain McCoy said, "so this will be the last time. If there's any question, if anybody doesn't know exactly what he's supposed to do, now is the time to ask, not later. So listen up."
McCoy was sitting on-or more accurately, leaning against-the ladder-like stairs to the bachelor officers' thatched hut on stilts. The others, again wearing their dyed-black utilities, were sitting on the ground in a half-circle facing him. Wendlington, Pierce, and the two Filipinos were wearing the spare sets of utilities the landing team had carried with them.
"There are some things we won't know until this happens," McCoy said. "First of all, we won't know how many Jap trucks there will be until Everly comes down the road on his motorcycle. At least two, that's almost for sure, and maybe as many as four or five. If there's only two, that gives us the most trouble, because we need two trucks to move the wounded and civilians. That means we're in trouble if one truck-or both of them-are damaged when we hit the convoy. If both trucks are knocked out, then we call the whole thing off. We grab their weapons and whatever we can get off the trucks and come back here. If one truck is knocked out, we'll make the decision whether to call it off, or try to do with just one truck, then.
"There are four firing teams. Each team has a Springfield and nine rounds. Five in the rifle and four spares, plus two carbines, each with six fifteen-round magazines. I can't say this enough: The less shooting the better, and the one thing we don't want to hit is the trucks.
"There will probably be four Japs in each truck-the driver, somebody riding with him, and two soldiers in the back. The first thing we do is take out the drivers of the first and last trucks. Then the drivers of the trucks in between, and then the guards.
"I'll fire the first shot. Nobody shoots until I do. We can't take the chance that when he hears shooting the driver of the lead truck will step on the gas to get away. As soon as you hear my shot, start shooting. But have a target before you shoot!
"As soon as the trucks are stopped, the riflemen will take a carbine, and we'll go on the road and make sure everybody is dead."
"Don't just drop the Springfields and forget them," Everly interrupted. "I want them on the trucks before we leave!"
"Right," McCoy said. He didn't see any real use for the rifles without ammunition, and if each rifleman fired three shots-and five seemed most likely-before picking up a carbine, there would be four rounds left for each rifle. And Garands, and ammunition for them, would be on the Sunfish. But he knew the Springfields were important to Everly, so he went along.
"As soon as we get the trucks rolling," McCoy went on, "Lieutenant Ev-erly will get back on his motorcycle and head off down the road to the wounded and civilians. And to make sure the people on the side of the road know it's us, and not Japanese in the trucks.
"Then we pick up our passengers and go on down the road until Everly stops us. We'll unload the passengers and move them into the jungle. Lieuten-ant Alvarez's people will then take the trucks further down the road and get rid of them. And then we wait for the Sunfish."
He looked around his audience. No one seemed to be paying attention to him.
They're bored, he thought. This must be the tenth time I've gone through this.
"Are there any questions?" McCoy asked.
There were no questions.
I think at this point that I'm supposed to say something encouraging. I can't think of what.
"OK," McCoy said. "Let's get this show on the road."
He pushed himself off the ladderlike stairs and picked up his Springfield.
"Good luck, gentlemen," Fertig called from behind him.
I was wondering where he was, and he's been there all the time.
Their eyes met.
"See you after the war, McCoy," General Fertig said.
"Yes, Sir," McCoy said. He raised his hand in salute. Fertig returned it casually. McCoy did an about-face and walked to Master Sergeant Lamar, who was in the process of slinging his Springfield over his shoulder.
Lamar would lead them to the interception site north of Tarragona. Lamar met McCoy's eyes, nodded, turned, and started off. McCoy looked over his shoulder to make sure that Macklin was behind him, and then started off after Master Sergeant Lamar.
[EIGHT]
1.7 miles north of Tarragona
Davao Oriental Province
Mindanao, Commonwealth of the Philippines
0920 Hours 31 January 1943
In the professional judgment of Captain Kenneth R. McCoy, if there was going to be a convoy today, it would have been here by now. That meant that there would be no convoy today. That posed problems.
They had been here since shortly after noon on the twenty-ninth. It had rained on and off since their arrival, often in short, intense storms against which the crude shelters they had built offered little protection. They were soaked through each time it rained, and there was no time to get dry. After each rain, the insects came out, and they were all covered with angry welts.